Now, that does seem to indicate that Olympus have decided that there is a significant market still out there of E-xxx / E-xx owners wishing to upgrade. Apparently, this group have not been lured to Micro FT -- or left for Canon / Nikon / Pentax / Sony.

Many have...

Leaving a highly competitive market completely for years, it's going to be tough to make any inroads. I really hope they do make something less than an E7 type camera but I think we will be lucky to see even that.

That may well be so, but do you remember when Netscape Navigator had around 90% of the Internet browser market? How many here have even heard of ﻿Netscape Navigator﻿... ? It doesn't even rate a separate mention here .

Ditto with WordPerfect.

Apple's Claris Works was going to be the giant killer that unseated Microsoft Office ... Where is Claris Works today?

Olympus have had to do it tough overcoming the fraud perpetrated by members of its board. Their µFT cameras have been very successful. Now we have a very definite announcement by the head of Olympus Imaging that they are going to continue with all three levels of dSLR. A careful reading of Mr Terada's statement makes that quite clear. It is difficult to interpret his statement that:

"Because we have to provide a product for users with SHG and HG lenses. And there are people using E400, 500 and 600-series DSLRs, we have to provide products for them to keep enjoying their photography."

In any other way than that Olympus is going to produce an entry level camera to provide a new body for entry level users. The way that Olympus classifies its lenses is a clue to the reference to HG and SHG lens users. In their mind at least, HG equates to the semi-pro, E-30 type camera, and SHG equates to their flagship E-x cameras.

Having made an entry level body, it is not all that hard to make it into a semi-pro body, or vice versa ... The flagship body is a given, as is the entry level body. It makes little, if any, sense to then preclude the middle level body. These are the big money spinners. Leveraging off the technology of both the flagship and entry level models, one already has all the components to hand to make it, except for the body mould ... e.g. the E-30 coming out of much the same parts bins as the E-620 and E-3, and was a testing platform for the E-5 technologies. Even the highly expensive pentaprism of the E-30 looks very suspiciously like it is a slightly modified E-1 design ...

Just a few thoughts, FWIW.

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